


I've Got a Lonely Soul

by MyrandaRoyce



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyrandaRoyce/pseuds/MyrandaRoyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She realizes that to him she is a concept that lives and breathes between the pages of his notebook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Got a Lonely Soul

.01 

"There are things you can't get in books," Donna says. 

"There are things you can't get anywhere," Harold says, "but we dream they can be found in other people."

This is where it all began, really. They've known each other for three days when their relationship starts. He gives her one his delicate orchids. He whispers the instructions on how to care for it. Then he kisses her and softly says, "you're everything Laura said you were."

She kisses him back. 

.02 

She wears her nicest blouse and nicest skirt for the occasion. She sits with her back straight in Harold's armchair. He sits at a table, pen in hand, ready to tell her story.

Donna doesn't tell him everything. There are stories that can wait for another day. But she tells him stories about the things she did with Laura. He interrupts her in the middle of one. "Laura told me that story too," he says. "She said you looked like a Greek goddess standing in the woods like that. The moonlight shining in your hair."

She realizes that to him she is a concept that lives and breathes between the pages of his notebook. Her life outlined by the smooth tip of his pen held by his steady hand. "You only like me because of Laura," she says. She realizes she doesn't mind. She likes him because of Laura too. 

.03 

They eat their dinner on the couch under the pretense that they will watch a movie. Like a normal couple. They don't, of course. Instead, Harold watches Donna. 

"Don't you ever want to leave this house?" Donna asks. "We could hold hands and go for a walk down by the river. It's a bit cold but it's still very nice this time of year." 

"It's not a question of wanting," he answers. "We can't always have what we want."

.04 

When the first snowflakes begin to fall on Twin Peaks they huddle together in the room where Harold keeps his flowers. It's the warmest spot in the house. He asks if he can fuck her. 

(Those are Donna's words, not his, when she tells this story years later. Harold is a romantic. He says make love.) 

She finds it odd that he would ask. She didn't know it was supposed to happen that way. 

He's not as awkward as she expected him to be. He hasn't always been a shut in. He's done this before. 

It hurts, but not as much as she had been lead to believe it would. She cries, but for different reasons she expects. Harold brushes the tears from her eyes and asks if he did something wrong. She shakes her head. "I was thinking about Laura." 

Harold holds her and says, "you're my favorite living person, Donna."

.05

"How did you get to be here, Donna?" he asks her.

"The old lady and her grandson next door told me come see you," she answers. 

"The woman next door doesn't have a grandson."

"I saw him."

"Not everything you see is true," he says. "Laura knew that."

.06

When they fight they fight about Laura's diary. Harold reads Donna certain passages but some things he won't share. 

"I need it," she says one day. "It could help catch whoever killed Laura. Don't you want that?"

"If it could help I would know," he says. "She gave it to me." He folds his arms. Donna finds it childish. When the silence becomes too much he forces a smile and says, "I have something else for you though. Laura left it here one day." He holds out a silver necklace. An angel dangles from the chain. Donna recognizes it. Laura would always wear it to church. 

Donna holds up her hair and lets him secure it around her neck. He trails soft kisses on her shoulders. "She would want you to have it," he says.

.07

"What happened to you?" she asks. "That makes you so afraid of the world."

He looks out the window. "J'ai une âme solitaire," he says. 

Donna doesn't speak French. She doesn't ask him what it means.

.08

Donna sits with Maddy at the diner. The silver necklace burns the skin above her heart. Maddy is the only one she tells about Harold Smith. She's the only person she can come to with this. Laura's shy, awkward, but endlessly brave cousin. Laura's doppelgänger. 

"Alight," Maddy says when Donna lays out the plan to get the diary. Even their voices sound the same. 

.09

Harold is teaching her to waltz. "I was the top of my class," he says, putting on an old record. He holds her closer than is traditional and leads her steps. He hums instructions in her ear. 

"Laura liked to dance too," Donna says.

"I know."

.10

Harold leaves her alone in the living room to tend to his flowers. She sends Maddy the signal. 

He catches them of course. It was a poorly thought out plan made in desperation. He stops in his tracks when he sees Maddy. It takes a moment to realize it's not his Laura come back to him. Donna has never seen him angry. Donna has never been afraid of him. 

She is now. 

Maddy clings to her arm as Harold advances towards them with his rusted gardening tool. "I thought you were different," he says. "You made me feel like I could return to the world and find something decent, pure. But you're just like all the others. You lie. And you betray. And then you laugh about it." He doesn't attack them. He cuts himself instead. Donna struggles to grasp the horror of it. 

She didn't think this would happen. 

She knows she'll never forgive herself. 

.11

It was all for nothing. Donna doesn't have the diary. She doesn't have her lover either. She has more stories she was planing to tell him. She doesn't want to admit that it's too late to tell them now. 

She doesn't want to admit it's over. 

.12

She flinches when she hears of his suicide. Agent Cooper looks at her with accusation in his eyes. Or maybe she imagines that. Donna isn't sure what things are real anymore. 

Harold was right. The woman next door doesn't have a grandson. It's not even the same woman she met. The neighbor gives her letter with a page from Laura's diary.

.13

When she gets home she finds that her orchid has died. She didn't listen well enough when he told her what to do. She never listens well enough. 

Donna waits until her family is sleeping and takes the dead flower to the back yard. With her hands she digs a hole about a foot deep. She places the plant, pot and all, into the ground. She rips the necklace from her throat and places it into the ground too.

Laura had once told her that the angels had all gone away. 

"I chased them away, didn't I Laura?" Donna whispers to the sky. 

.14

She forgives herself eventually.


End file.
